Tage Thompson, JJ Peterka net hat tricks as Sabres steamroll Bruins, 7-2

Steve Conroy, Boston Herald on Jan 28, 2025

Published in Hockey

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If the Bruins, desperate as they are for every point, can’t manage a better showing against the last-place Buffalo Sabres than they put forth on Tuesday, it’s hard to picture them making much noise in the spring.

After two solid, well-structured wins at home over Ottawa and Colorado, the road version of the B’s showed up in Buffalo and were steamrolled by Tage Thompson and JJ Peterka hat tricks, 7-2.

The B’s fell to 9-14-3 away from TD Garden and now have a minus-25 goal differential, neither of which is a good sign for the club’s long-term health.

Yes, the B’s were shorthanded as the beleaguered back end took another hit before the game. Not only were Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy still out, but Brandon Carlo could not play due to illness. Andrew Peeke was the only right shot D-man in the lineup. But the B’s were too careless with the puck in the offense zone and too passive defensively off the rush.

And the first period looked like so many games recently with the B’s getting outshot (10-5) but they managed to get into the first break at a 1-1 after taking a brief lead.

The B’s took the advantage at 12:48 off the stick of Mason Lohrei. Operating at his left point position, Lohrei smartly avoided Zach Benson out high, carried the puck down to the dot and beat Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen with a modified slapper.

The lead lasted all of 55 seconds. The B’s top line got hemmed in its own end for much of the shift and, after it finally pushed it out of the zone, the players got caught in a change. On a Sabre 4-on-3, Matt Poitras got lost out high and Dylan Cozens connected with the wide-open trailer Thompson, who ripped a slapper past Jeremy Swayman.

Thompson gave the Sabres the lead at 4:43 of the second. In the offensive zone, Peeke took the puck deep in the offensive zone but his pass into the slot was picked off and the Sabres went the other way. With the B’s chasing the play, the Sabres took advantage of open passing lanes to pull off a nice tic-tac-toe play and Ryan McLeod gave Thompson an open-net goal.

As has happened too often lately on the road, it didn’t take long before the opposition quickly made it a multiple-goal deficit. The Sabres stretched the lead to 3-1 at 6:32. Vinni Lettieri had missed a great chance to tie it when, with an open net, the puck hopped over his stick when he tried to stuff it home.

Shortly after that, Peterka simply beat Swayman off the rush from the left circle with a well-placed shot off the far post and in. It was a good shot for Peterka, though a save would have been nice at that juncture.

After putting themselves in a hole, the B’s finally decided to play with a little urgency. They earned a power play with which they did nothing but they kept at it. Still, they couldn’t get another one past Luukkonen and they had to start the third period with a minute left of penalty kill time after a Brad Marchand offensive zone penalty.

The B’s killed the penalty, but the game got away from them on Thompson’s hat trick goal. Using Nikita Zadorov as a screen, Thompson whistled a wrist shot through the defenseman’s legs and beat Swayman shortside.

Marchand cut into the lead at 10:13 on a power-play goal. But before they could make the Sabres nervous, they coughed up a goal just 30 seconds later when Peterka split Lohrei and Parker Wotherspoon and snapped it over Swayman to make it 5-2.

Any hope — or delusion — of a comeback ended there. Peterka finished off his hat trick with an empty-netter and Benson added another garbage-time power-play goal.